Page 3 of Paris and the Reaper

Shuddering, he struggled for breath, for some relief from the anvils in his head and the needles in his limbs.

“You get it all out?” the voice asked.

He nodded weakly and—sweet mercy—was rolled onto his back again. A wet cloth was swiped over his lips then laid across his forehead, and with the soft, cool dampness came the needed respite, enough for him to breathe, to open his eyes and look up into the dark ones above him. Gone were the violet eyes, gone were the black feathers and hooked beak, gone were the talons that had scratched out the monster’s eyes. But Paris was certain the man above him, with his tan skin, sharp nose, and black hair was the same as the raven who’d saved him.

“It hurts,” he told the stranger.

“Where?”

Paris chuckled at the inane question, then winced when the motion brought more daggers, in his head worst of all.

“Hold on,” the raven said, then, leaving the cloth on his forehead, covered his ears with his hands. “Need some help in here!” he called, his raised voice thankfully muffled.

So too was the voice of someone else who entered the room, the two of them conversing in what to Paris were nothing more than murmurs. But at least they were the only voices, the ones in his head from before blissfully quiet. Gone for good, he hoped. Now if the raven could just get rid of his pain too. More hands were laid on him, more voices in the room, then a chant began and memories of the monster returned.

He struggled where he lay, and the hands on him pressed harder, hotter, a wave of heat rolling from the tips of his toes up his body. Higher and hotter. “Help me,” he pleaded with the raven.

The hand over his right ear shifted. “That’s what they’re trying to do. They’re burning out the poison. Just hold on a little longer.”

He stared up at the shifter asking for his trust. “Who are you?”

“Icarus sent us.”

Guilt tore at his insides, sharper than any pain that tore at the rest of his body. “Is he?—”

“Safe,” the raven said with a wry grin. “You are too.”

“My father?”

“Doesn’t know where you are.”

He’d look around if he could, but the raven’s hands held his head steady, held him just out of the lake of fire that threatened, that inched higher with each chanted syllable. “Where am I?”

“With the Redwood Coven.”

“Where? How far?—”

“You’re in Encinal. Near the shellmound.”

Clear across Yerba Buena from the family compound of condos. Clear across the Bay too. On consecrated ground that surely his father was smart enough to avoid. He let out a relieved breath, and the ironic twist of the raven’s lips smoothed into a soft curve Paris ached to paint.

Soft like the fingers that took up stroking his temples again. “Now, let the witches do their work.”

“Don’t leave me.”

“I’ve got you.”

As the heat rose, Paris closed his eyes and focused on the soft sheets beneath him, on the cool rag across his forehead, on the gentle fingers caressing his temples. Let the sensory anthesis carry his mind away while his body fought what he didn’t fully understand yet.

The raven said he was safe.

He believed him. For now.

TWO

Paris was lost.

Wherever he was, it didn’t look like any part of Yerba Buena he knew. Not Sunset Hill where he lived, not the Lakeside apartments where his best friends, Kai and Jason, stayed. Not Sutro Hill, the Lost Valley, the Manor, the Canyon Lands or anywhere in between. He’d been raised in YB, was familiar with every nook and cranny of his hometown. He was as much a child of YB’s mist and hills as he was the only son of Vincent Cirillo.

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